SMALL BUSINESS BLOG -- SCOTT SUTTELL

Painesville's Dyson Corp. silent amid Bay Bridge bolt problems

Blog Entry: April 18, 2013 10:09 AM | Author: SCOTT SUTTELL

Officials in charge of building a new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge “repeatedly questioned the work and quality control of companies involved in making long seismic safety bolts” — including Dyson Corp. in Painesville — that broke while being tightened, according to this Associated Press story.

Last month, the AP notes, about one-third of the 96 bolts failed, and transportation officials “said it could take months to find the cause and fix the problem, meaning the scheduled Labor Day opening of the new $6.3 billion span could be in jeopardy.”

Hundreds of pages of documents released to news media by the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, “show its inspectors found structural integrity issues with some of the bolts several years ago, before they were installed.”

Inspectors said bolts made by Dyson “failed to meet certain standards during testing on three occasions,” according to the AP. Dyson has said it will not comment during the probe into the bolt failures.

As far back as October 2008, Caltrans “admonished Dyson after finding that a test sample of bolts did not meet elongation requirements, a measure of the bolts' structural integrity,” the AP reports.

Records also show Caltrans inspectors identified other issues with Dyson and its subcontractors.

For instance, Cleveland-based Art Galvanizing Works Inc., which put the protective zinc coating on some of the shorter bolts, “was criticized by inspectors for using approximate time guidelines for bathing the bolts,” which David Xu, a mechanical engineer and metallurgist at Berkeley Engineering and Research Inc., tells the AP can affect the integrity of the galvanizing.

This and that

Looking up: Businesses small and large should cheer the findings of the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book report, according to this analysis by Businessweek.com.

Although a lot of recent data — the jobs report and consumer confidence numbers most prominently — were discouraging, the new Beige Book survey “shows no signs of a slowdown,” the website notes.

From late February through April 5, the economy expanded at a “moderate” pace, mostly on the back of strong auto sales and a suddenly vibrant housing sector.

“Growth was strongest in the Cleveland, Richmond, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Kansas City districts, indicating that the Midwest and Southeast are outpacing the rest of the country,” according to the Fed.

Keeping up the fight: The state of Ohio will not go quietly in the matter of a court decision that would require the state's workers' compensation fund to reimburse employers $860 million in alleged premium overcharges from 2001 to 2007.

The state this week filed an appeal, saying the March 20 ruling by Judge Richard J. McMonagle of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court was wrong as a matter of law.

According to court documents, the state “outlines nine reasons the decision should be reversed,” according to PropertyCasualty360.com. Of them, the state says the court erred in calculating damages due the plaintiffs under an “equitable restitution” formula the state alleges is inappropriate.

The website notes the case is a class-action lawsuit that has been in the courts since 2007. The core of the dispute is discounted premiums the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation gave companies that joined group insurance plans.

Lawyers for plaintiffs argue the state should just settle the case.

“Now is the time for the BWC to do the right thing and immediately reimburse these businesses," says James DeRoche, a partner at Seaman Garson L.L.C., Cleveland, and a principal lawyer for the employers in the class-action lawsuit. "If the BWC is truly business-friendly, it will not further delay payment so tens of thousands of small businesses can reinvest those dollars into creating and protecting Ohio jobs.”

On the road again:James Gilmore, an author/speaker/business consultant from Chesterland, gets to weigh in on his favorite U.S. hotels in this story from USA Today.

He's part of the newspaper's panel of “Road Warriors” — some of the world's most frequent travelers who voluntarily provide travel information.

Mr. Gilmore's two picks are both in California: L'Ermitage Beverly Hills and Hotel Vitale in San Francisco.

The Bose sound system in the guest room of the L'Ermitage is unmatched for enjoying music in a hotel, he says. "And I love the heat and motion sensors that allow housekeeping to postpone as long as possible the moment they must finally knock and interrupt one's stay."

At Hotel Vitale, the views of the Bay Bridge "are simply wonderful," the frequent traveler says.

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